Blogging can be useful to some!

I was recently thinking about deleting this blog, since I seem to find so little time to post things; and the initial impetus for writing it has gone, or rather, I have moved on from it. We will be quitting sunny Shropshire in the Summer, and I shall miss the countryside around here. We will, hopefully, have a proper Parish, where we can regularly attend the Mass of Ages, with not an altar girl in sight (and I do love little girls, I really do - probably more so because I was never blessed with one!). We will no longer have to drive for 30 - 40 minutes on a Sunday afternoon so that we can attend an Old Rite Mass at the awful time of 3pm (I'm guaranteed to start dropping off during the sermon at that time!), but I will miss the people of the peripatetic Latin Mass community, although they are now dwindling fast due to the establishment of a regular 6pm Latin Mass in the parish of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate in Staffordshire (thanks be to God!). We thought that there would not be many at Mass today, so were pleasantly surprised by the presence of a family - a young couple, the grandparents, the three year old son, and three week old daughter, who don't normally come. It was the mum who made me think maybe I should carry on posting occasionally, as she mentioned, over tea and tabnabs after Mass, that she'd recently discovered my blog, and found it helpful - she must have been reading some of my early posts, which dealt with our attempts to adopt (I rarely go back and read what I wrote, so I can't remember what's there that could have been helpful to her!!) When I first met her, we were both attending a home-educating group, and her little boy was about two then, but I knew she longed for more children. Having been in her position, I can honestly say I would have been of little help in encouraging her, as by then I had realised that prayers don't always get answered the way we want them to. I firmly believe that God doesn't give us what we want, but what we need. I am also heartily glad for her that what she wanted was what God knew she needed, and she now proudly holds a beautiful little girl! Praise Him!
As for the home educating, we are still in a quandary as to whether to carry on once we move. Our son is really flapping his wings, longing to fly further and further from the nest - all to be expected at his age, despite his inability to find anything he needs when he wants it, "Mum, where is my ..." "Right in front of your nose". But perhaps that's just a male thing, "Darling, where is my ..." "Just here, where you left it..."
Is school what he needs? - the good Lord seems to be giving him an opportunity to go. It's not what he wants, (mostly because he fears hard work, I think!). I'm not sure it's what I want, (I'd rather he remained a dunderhead and kept his Faith and purity), but God knows what is best, and we're hoping He's going to make it clear to us what should be done.

Meanwhile, I shall try and enjoy my garden as it comes into bloom, for the last time before we rent our house out, knowing that there is little likelihood that it will be cared for overmuch by tenants...


The blue and white garden that I have longed for, is still not in evidence, although there seem to be plenty of blues coming out at present, the whites will probably only put in an appearance after this lot have died off - ho hum...







I thought this rather an apt word-picture of the garden, which was reluctantly brought forth from my son's pen, as a description of what he could see from the school-room window...
"Through the French doors I see a red pot on a black wrought iron stand, which is sitting on the lawn, in the middle of which is a clothes drier. Further down, a bench with a metal arch sits, and after it a pond, over which a tall clump of bamboo hangs. There are shrubs around the pond, and up each side of the lawn there are flower beds, fillled with flowers, shrubs and bushes; and beyond the pond the untidy patch of wilderness that used to be a vegetable garden, is in full bloom with dandelions, daisies, forget-me-nots and buttercups. The shed which is hidden by the bamboo, stands behind the pond."